Samsung (005930) on Thursday officially announced a compact and mid-range version of its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone. The Galaxy S III mini is equipped with a 4-inch Super AMOLED display with WVGA resolution and a pixel density of 233 ppi. The handset also includes a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear camera, NFC and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Unlike its bigger brother, the Galaxy S III mini doesn’t include 4G LTE connectivity and is a 3G-only device. Pricing information and availability details were not disclosed. Samsung’s press release follows below.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today unveiled the GALAXY S III mini, a compact version of the flagship smartphone GALAXY S III. The GALAXY S III mini brings the high performance, intuitive ease-of-use and nature-inspired design of the GALAXY S III to an elegant, compact smartphone with a 4.0-inch screen. It can be an optimal choice for consumers who are looking for more practical smartphones.

“The GALAXY S III introduced a new concept of smartphone that has proven hugely popular around the world.
We’re now delighted to bring its revolutionary design, intuitive usability and intelligence to the GALAXY S III mini in a more compact form,” said JK Shin, President and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics. “We continue to make every effort to provide extraordinary mobile experiences to meet a wide variety of user needs.”

The GALAXY S III mini is powered by Android™ 4.1 (Jelly Bean), the latest version of the world’s most popular smartphone operating system. Jelly Bean has fast, fluid and smooth graphics along with a new Google Search™ experience featuring Google Now™, which brings you just the right information, before you even ask.

Stylish and compact, the GALAXY S III mini shares the GALAXY S III’s breakthrough design and simple elegance.
Its ultra-minimal curved frame delivers a rich natural feel, which is also reflected on its nature-inspired home screen, wallpapers and ringtones.

The GALAXY S III mini is packed with intelligent technology designed to make interacting with the phone incredibly natural and intuitive. S Voice, Samsung’s advanced natural language recognition software, lets you use your voice to unlock the phone with simple customized commands, or to play your favorite songs, turn the volume up or down, organize your schedule, or automatically launch the camera and start taking photos.

The GALAXY S III mini also understands your gestures to make using your phone easier and more natural: With Smart Stay, the phone’s camera tracks your eyes and keeps the screen lit as long as you are looking at it. When reading a text message from a friend, Direct Call enables you to automatically dial a call simply by lifting the phone to your ear; and Smart Alert conveniently alerts you to missed calls or messages as soon as you pick up your phone.

Content sharing is easy and fast on the GALAXY S III mini: Its S Beam feature lets you share a 10MB music file in just two seconds by simply tapping on another S Beam-enabled device including GALAXY S III or GALAXY Note II, even without a Wi-Fi or cellular signal. The ‘Buddy photo share’ function also allows photos to be easily and simultaneously shared with all your friends pictured in an image directly from the camera or the photo gallery.